TED@New York
Jeff Smith: Lessons in business ... from prison
Jeff Smith:监狱里的商业课程
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Jeff Smith曾在监狱中服刑一年。他所接触的真实监狱与预期截然不同——在狱友身上，他看到了无穷的智慧和灵活的商业头脑。他提出了这样一个问题：为什么我们不发掘这样的创业潜力让囚犯们出狱之后为社会做出贡献呢？（录制于TED@NewYork的TED Talent Search活动）
Jeff Smith - Recovering politician
Once an up-and-coming star in the Missouri State Senate, Jeff Smith went to prison for covering up an election law violation. Since his release, he's created a new space for himself as a professor, writer, political commentator and advocate for those he was locked up with. Full bio
Once an up-and-coming star in the Missouri State Senate, Jeff Smith went to prison for covering up an election law violation. Since his release, he's created a new space for himself as a professor, writer, political commentator and advocate for those he was locked up with. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
B.J. was one of many fellow inmates
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和许多囚犯一样，
00:19
who had big plans for the future.
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B.J.有着宏大的未来计划。
00:21
He had a vision. When he got out,
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他的愿望是，出狱之后
00:23
he was going to leave the dope game for good and fly straight,
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不再贩毒，坦荡做人
00:26
and he was actually working on merging his two passions into one vision.
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他正在努力将他的两项爱好融合成一项事业。
00:31
He'd spent 10,000 dollars
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他花了一万美元
00:33
to buy a website that exclusively featured women
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购买了一个网站
00:36
having sex on top of or inside of luxury sports cars. (Laughter)
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网站的主要内容是美女在奢侈跑车的上面或者里面做爱。（笑声）
00:42
It was my first week in federal prison,
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那时我进联邦监狱刚刚一周，
00:45
and I was learning quickly that it wasn't what you see on TV.
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但我很快就发现那里的情形和电视上很不一样。
00:49
In fact, it was teeming with smart, ambitious men
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事实上，监狱充满了聪明、野心勃勃的人
00:52
whose business instincts were in many cases
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六个月之前
00:55
as sharp as those of the CEOs
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作为密苏里州参议院”冉冉升起的新星“
00:58
who had wined and dined me six months earlier
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我和CEO们一起吃饭
00:59
when I was a rising star in the Missouri Senate.
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进监狱之后，我感觉囚犯们的商业直觉和高管们一样敏锐。
01:04
Now, 95 percent of the guys that I was locked up with
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我的狱友中95%
01:07
had been drug dealers on the outside,
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都是因为贩毒被捕的，
01:10
but when they talked about what they did,
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他们说起自己的过去时
01:13
they talked about it in a different jargon,
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会用到独特的行话
01:16
but the business concepts that they talked about
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但他们谈到的经商理念
01:17
weren't unlike those that you'd learn in a first year MBA class at Wharton:
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和沃顿商学院工商管理硕士的一年级课程颇为相似：
01:21
promotional incentives, you never charge a first-time user,
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促销激励，新顾客可以免费试用
01:26
focus-grouping new product launches,
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针对某一顾客群体的新产品发布，
01:29
territorial expansion.
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市场拓展。
01:31
But they didn't spend a lot of time reliving the glory days.
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他们并没有整天沉浸在对过去光辉岁月的追忆之中。
01:35
For the most part, everyone was just trying to survive.
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大多数情况下，他们不过是为了生存而已。
01:38
It's a lot harder than you might think.
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这可能比你想象的要困难很多。
01:40
Contrary to what most people think,
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和大部分人所想的不同
01:43
people don't pay, taxpayers don't pay, for your life
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人民，纳税人是不支付
01:46
when you're in prison. You've got to pay for your own life.
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囚犯在监狱的生活费用的。你必须自己养活自己。
01:48
You've got to pay for your soap, your deodorant,
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你必须付钱购买肥皂、除臭剂、
01:50
toothbrush, toothpaste, all of it.
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牙刷、牙膏等等（一切的生活必需品）。
01:53
And it's hard for a couple of reasons.
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有几个原因导致在监狱中生存颇为困难。
01:54
First, everything's marked up 30 to 50 percent
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首先，所有东西的价格都比
01:56
from what you'd pay on the street,
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市场价高出30%到50%，
01:58
and second, you don't make a lot of money.
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第二，你挣得钱不多。
02:00
I unloaded trucks. That was my full-time job,
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我为卡车卸货。这是一份全职工作，
02:03
unloading trucks at a food warehouse,
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在一个食品仓库给卡车卸货
02:05
for $5.25, not an hour, but per month.
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一个月，不是一个小时，赚5.25美元。
02:09
So how do you survive?
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怎样才能生存呢？
02:11
Well, you learn to hustle, all kinds of hustles.
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我们必须做买卖，各种各样的买卖。
02:15
There's legal hustles.
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有合法的买卖。
02:17
You pay everything in stamps. Those are the currency.
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以邮票为货币买东西。
02:19
You charge another inmate to clean his cell.
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有偿为狱友打扫牢房。
02:21
There's sort of illegal hustles, like you run a barbershop out of your cell.
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也有轻微违规的买卖，比如在你的牢房里开个理发店。
02:26
There's pretty illegal hustles: You run a tattoo parlor out of your own cell.
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违规情节稍微严重一点的是：在牢房里开纹身店。
02:30
And there's very illegal hustles, which you smuggle in,
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也有违规情节非常严重的买卖：从外面偷运
02:34
you get smuggled in, drugs, pornography,
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或者请人偷运毒品、色情制品、
02:38
cell phones, and just as in the outer world,
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手机，和监狱外的商业世界一样
02:41
there's a risk-reward tradeoff, so the riskier the enterprise,
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监狱里存在着风险收益的平衡，所以一项生意风险越大
02:45
the more profitable it can potentially be.
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它所能带来的利润可能也越高。
02:47
You want a cigarette in prison? Three to five dollars.
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在监狱想买一根香烟？3到5美元。
02:51
You want an old-fashioned cell phone that you flip open
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想要翻盖的、
02:55
and is about as big as your head? Three hundred bucks.
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和人脑袋差不多大的手机？300美元。
02:58
You want a dirty magazine?
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想要色情杂志？
03:01
Well, it can be as much as 1,000 dollars.
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那可能要花1000美元。
03:04
So as you can probably tell, one of the defining aspects
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你可能也发现了，灵活的头脑
03:07
of prison life is ingenuity.
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在监狱生活中非常重要。
03:11
Whether it was concocting delicious meals
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无论是用从仓库偷来的废料
03:13
from stolen scraps from the warehouse,
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烹制美味的食物
03:17
sculpting people's hair with toenail clippers,
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还是用指甲钳为人做发型
03:21
or constructing weights from boulders in laundry bags
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抑或是用挂在树上装满岩石的洗衣袋健身
03:26
tied on to tree limbs, prisoners learn how to make do with less,
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囚犯们知道如何在物质条件贫乏的条件下生存
03:31
and many of them want to take this ingenuity
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很多人也希望能利用自己
03:34
that they've learned to the outside
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在监狱中培养锻炼出的灵活头脑
03:36
and start restaurants, barber shops,
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在出狱之后开餐厅、理发店
03:38
personal training businesses.
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或者搞个人健身辅导。
03:40
But there's no training, nothing to prepare them for that,
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然而监狱中没有意在帮助囚犯重返社会自力更生的课程
03:44
no rehabilitation at all in prison,
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囚犯在监狱中并没有得到真正的改造。
03:46
no one to help them write a business plan,
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没有人帮助囚犯撰写商业计划，
03:48
figure out a way to translate the business concepts
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帮助他们找到把来自直觉的商业理念
03:52
they intuitively grasp into legal enterprises,
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转化为合法生意的方法，
03:55
no access to the Internet, even.
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囚犯们甚至不能上网。
03:57
And then, when they come out, most states
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随后，出狱之后，很多州
04:00
don't even have a law prohibiting employers
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没有禁止
04:02
from discriminating against people with a background.
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雇主歧视有前科的求职者的法律。
04:06
So none of us should be surprised
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所以在三分之二的囚犯出狱后
04:08
that two out of three ex-offenders re-offend
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五年之后还会再犯的事实面前
04:11
within five years.
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我们根本无需惊讶。
04:14
Look, I lied to the Feds. I lost a year of my life from it.
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我对联邦政府撒谎，因此在联邦监狱服刑一年。
04:19
But when I came out, I vowed that I was going to do
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不过，出狱之后，我发誓
04:23
whatever I could to make sure
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尽全力帮助那些
04:24
that guys like the ones I was locked up with
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和我的狱友们有相似经历的人们
04:27
didn't have to waste any more of their life than they already had.
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让他们不要再继续浪费生命。
04:31
So I hope that you'll think about helping in some way.
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因此，我希望你们能够考虑伸出援手。
04:35
The best thing we can do is figure out ways
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我们的最佳选择是
04:37
to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit
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想办法扶持监狱中的创业精神
04:40
and the tremendous untapped potential in our prisons,
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发掘囚犯身上隐藏的巨大潜力
04:43
because if we don't, they're not going to learn any new skills
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因为如果我们不这么做的话，囚犯们就无法学到
04:46
that's going to help them, and they'll be right back.
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能够帮助他们谋生的新技能，他们还会回到监狱当中。
04:49
All they'll learn on the inside is new hustles.
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而他们在监狱里所能学到的不过是新的骗术而已。
04:52
Thank you. (Applause)
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谢谢。（掌声）
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jeff Smith - Recovering politicianOnce an up-and-coming star in the Missouri State Senate, Jeff Smith went to prison for covering up an election law violation. Since his release, he's created a new space for himself as a professor, writer, political commentator and advocate for those he was locked up with.
Why you should listen
In 2004, Jeff Smith ran for the U.S. Congressional seat vacated by Dick Gephardt, and came this close to defeating Republican Russ Carnahan. His inspiring, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign was documented in the award-winning documentary, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?.
A year later, Smith ran for the Missouri State Senate and won in a hotly contested election. He quickly became a rising star in the legislative body, focusing on education reform and tax credits among other things. However, in 2009, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into whether Smith had lied about a violation in his 2004 campaign. He ultimately plead guilty and spent a year in jail. It’s a story he has told on This American Life.
Since being released from prison, Smith accepted a position as an assistant professor at The New School's Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy in New York City. His research focuses on political campaigns, the role of race in urban politics and the legislative process. At the same time, he writes for The Recovering Politician, City & State NY and Politico's The Arena, and is working on an memoir.
Jeff Smith | Speaker | TED.com